AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 24
Join us on our on-going exploration of the Olympics to be held in Tokyo 2021, featuring Christian from the Friday Night Panel, and the route to the ring. Watch TalkinFight weekdays at 12, 4, 7, and 8:30pm EST on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live @Olympic @IOC Media
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#boxer #boxing #boxingtalkshow
Transcribed:
To another episode of uh, talking fight with respect to the olympics, it’ll be forthcoming, uh this july in tokyo and uh.
We have a lot to talk about today.
Uh there’s a lot of news in the boxing world right.
Well, things are going yeah well, yeah things are going on in the olympics.
In general, though uh we talked a little bit last week, uh at that point, they were still just speculating uh.
You know a lot of you know sources close to the games.
People in the know, kind of uh stuff.
They were talking about whether or not we would be seeing foreign spectators at this particular olympiad.
So at last it is official.
After you know, countless unsourced news reports and rumors spectators from abroad will be barred uh from the postponed tokyo olympics when they open in four months time.
So the decision was announced officially this saturday after an online meeting of the ioc, the japanese government, the tokyo government and the internet, the international paralympic committee, as well as local organizers.
So on monday, or just today, it was announced as well that volunteers are also not going to be permitted uh from overseas, but we’ll get into a little bit more on that in just one moment.
So officials said that the risk was too big to admit ticket holders from overseas during a pandemic.
The japanese public has also opposed fans from abroad.
It turns out several surveys have shown that up to 80 percent of the japanese public oppose holding the games at all.
With similar numbers, uh opposed to letting in crowds and fans from overseas, so you know japan, which has attributed so far about 8 800 deaths to covet 19 has so far managed to control the virus better than most countries, and that’s probably one of the reasons why We are still seeing a tokyo olympiad at this point in time.
The tokyo olympic organizing committee said in a statement in order to give clarity to ticket holders living overseas and to enable them to adjust their travel plans.
At this stage, the parties on the japanese side have come to the conclusion that they will not be able to enter japan at the time of the olympic as well as paralympic games.
Organizers have also said that 600 000 tickets have so far been sold to fans from outside japan.
Now they have promised refunds for these tickets, but this is going to be determined by so-called authorized ticket resellers that handle sales outside of japan.
So the problem here, though, is that some of these uh, depending on the deal that you’ve gone through to get your tickets, the website uh.
Some of these places charge up to 20 percent uh in fees over and above the cost of the ticket, and it’s not clear if any of these fees are going to be uh refunded or not or whether that’s just going to go.
You know you’ve lost your money on that and you’re only going to get face value back on your tickets, uh tashiro, amudo of the who’s.
The ceo of the organizing committee said that organizers were not in any way shape or form responsible for money lost on flights or hotel reservations.
He said that these did not involve any contract arrangement with tokyo, so organizing this.
So we’ve heard a couple of people weigh in on this one.
Organizing committee, president uh seiko hashimoto, said that there was pressure to wait longer to make this decision, but she said that fans could now plan uh and she also lamented the move saying so.
The fact that specters are not going to be able to attend the games from abroad.
This is very disappointing and it’s regrettable.
She added that it was an unavoidable decision.
Ioc president thomas bach called it a difficult decision, saying uh.
We have to take the decision.
That meant that we have to take decisions that many need sacrifice from everybody that may need sacrifice from everybody.
Sorry uh.
He said in an earlier statement.
Moodle also seemed to rule out fans entering who have received tickets from deep pocketed sponsors.
We had talked about that.
A little bit last week too saying that you know if you were part uh you’re coming along with uh one of the official sponsors of the games.
They might be able to sneak a few people in under the radar, but they said you know we’re not letting that we’re aware of that and we’re not going to be letting that happen either uh.
The quote actually says from says: if they are part of the operation of the games, if they are somewhat involved in the operations, then there’s still a possibility that they may be able to enter into japan, but solely as spectators for watching the games.
No, they will not be allowed to make an entry now.
Amudo also hinted at the time that more cuts for people on the periphery of the olympics were due to come.
He said that volunteers from overseas would be quote dealt with in the same manner as ominous sounding as that is uh, but he said details will be forthcoming later now.
On this note, we have uh this just this morning, heard a little bit more about that, but it’s still in the uh realm of rumors and people close to the uh games, as opposed to an official statement at this point in time, uh organizers have are, are Apparently, considering granting special entry permission to some 500 foreign volunteers, so volunteers are the backbone of any olympics and we know that, and so far more than 110 000 have put their lives on hold uh waiting for word from the olympic organizers about what their role is.
Going to be at this summer’s olympiad, uh now they’ve been leaning for some time and now not allowing well.
You know the 2000 or so of those volunteers that are coming from overseas.
They’Ve been leaning on that idea for a little while now uh, not allowing them at all, but there’s 500 of them that they’ve judged so far to have special skills or experience that is going to be integral to the operation of the game.
So they may be allowed in under special permission uh now that was according to the tokyo shin bun daily, but again that was them quoting multiple people connected with the issue.
So the issue of volunteers are up in the air spectators.
Officially know volunteers, it’s still up in the air a little bit, but we’re obviously we’re going to let you know more as or more as it comes about and we’ll we’ll let you know anything else that we hear about that uh looking forward to actually in boxing, Though uh we have had another announcement of a boxer who’s, a managed to qualify under the new system with a canceled qualif uh world qualifier botswana’s flyweight boxer, rajab muhammad uh.
This past friday became the country’s second boxer to notch a qualification slot for the tokyo 2020.
Boxing tournament uh muhammad ranked third in africa in his category and has managed to go through now, as the top two ahead of him in rankings have already qualified through the african uh olympic qualifier uh botswana’s uh olympic box, botswana’s boxing association or boba, their publicity secretary Talo tutsile told media on friday that the boxers qualification will enhance the country’s medal chances at the olympics.
Now muhammad is an african games champion from 20 uh to 2019 and has been training hard in camp despite the cancellation of the qualification tournament and is in good shape to compete in japan.
Tutsily has been quoted as sailing as saying uh.
Now muhammad is the country’s sixth athlete and second boxer to uh qualify for the tokyo olympics um now over the weekend in istanbul uh.
We also know the boss first tournament, uh, wrapped up now, we had been following uh the indian team, pretty closely going into this tournament as that, once again they were bringing in.
I think it was 13 strong and they did not have nearly as strong a tournament as we saw them at strandia or at box some recently uh, the only people that i mean the people we’ve been following most closely uh on that team have been naked, zarin And gaurav solanki now both of these uh fighters, great fighters uh both, but neither one of them managed to get anywhere past bronze, so both uh lost in their semi-finals and that’s where we ended up was with bronze medals from both of them.
Big winners on this tournament from the from the metal count, though uh obviously goes to uh hometown favorites, their turkey coming in with uh four gold medals, uh russia right behind them with three the kha’zix brought home a pair argentina brought home a couple, algeria, one and Kyrgyzstan actually brought home one at this as well a couple of the heavier divisions.
It was already kind of a go to.
We knew what country they were going to, whether or not it was uh would, rather just who it was going to is a bit of a stretch as both the head, both heavyweights uh and the gold medal were coming from kazakhstan and the light heavyweight both were Coming from turkey, so we saw that a couple of times no indians in the uh in the finals, though this this go round for this tournament, so they’ll be a little disappointed, especially after strong showings at the last couple of tournaments uh again.
For those of you remember, a real big disappointment for them was boxing uh, where out of nine finals, they were only able to compete in eight of them due to a kova 19 outbreak.
Fortunately, we haven’t heard any stories regarding uh this tournament or the uh or the one before that about coven 19 outbreak.
So hopefully, we’re starting to see these terms getting a little bit more serious about the actual covid restrictions and about enforcing their coven bubbles so that we do see these uh very successful tournaments coming off without any major medical news to announce.
So that’s good, and hopefully that just shows that they’re refining the process and by the time we get to the olympic games in four months, that this is going to be more science than art and that’s an excellent segue to the question coming in from england athletes And but so big t asks do you know if athletes and boxers will be forced or encouraged to take vaccines before going to tokyo? Okay, so the answer is it’s going to be.
Ultimately, it’s going to be down to your national olympic committee, so country by country.
That’S going to come down to national committee, however.
The actual games themselves from the from the japanese standpoint from the tokyo 2020 standpoint again always 20 20.
In quotation marks there.
The answer is no uh they, if you, if you read the uh, the covet 19 playbook, they it says right in there and i encourage everyone to do it’s only about 30 pages long, it’s available on the olympic website uh.
They are trying to set this up in such a way that they are not making vaccines mandatory and one of the big reasons for that is based around the fact that not every country is going to have the same vaccine roll out by the time we get To july you can pretty much guarantee that all of the american team is going to be vaccinated.
The canadians will be vaccinated, the brits are going to be vaccinated um, you know the people you think are going to be vaccinated then, but then, when you get into other countries where there may be, the development of the vaccine has been slower.
Approval has been slower.
The rollout’s been slower then, and then we’re not gon na.
They wouldn’t necessarily have a chance to get a vaccine into them before and with the amount of time you need, after the vaccine, to heal up from it before the actual olympics themselves.
As such, it would be seen as discriminatory from people from countries with a less developed rollout and to exclude them from the games.
Now, if you might also remember that uh the chinese are offering to vaccinate olympians who are unable to get vaccines in their home country, although a few countries have already opted out of that, canada and japan being examples of that saying that the current vaccines are not Approved in canada or japan, so they’re encouraging their athletes not to get involved with that particular vaccine scheme, but to stick with stuff that has been approved at home.
But ultimately, japan varies very, very specific, saying that they are not requiring vaccines, but they will be requiring a negative covid19 result test result uh to have been provided within 72 hours of you, leaving your home country for japan and depending on, where you’re coming in from.
If you’ll also be required to take a a coven 19 test at the airport, upon arrival in japan as well, and then it’s daily testing from that point forward and reports daily temperature checks to your coven 19 liaison person on your olympic team.
And then we just go back and forth.
We hope we don’t hear anything and uh.
We hope that nobody gets kicked out of the tournament for a for a positive diagnosis, we’ll keep fingers crossed for that.
Well, super response to the question and a great update today from uh from tokyo um.
I guess that wraps up today’s episode and uh we’ll see you tomorrow sounds good, we’ll talk, then.
Okay, great thanks, christian, appreciate it and thank you for tuning in remember to like share subscribe.
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